Towards an Implementation of a Peer-Learning and Peer-Teaching Group in Programming

Abstract

Many people believe that programming is hard. This might appear true, when looking at the education, but not necessarily due to the subject itself. Often, the complexity lies in mathematical problems that can be hard to comprehend or relate to for students. Due to the current structure concerning exams, high drop-out rates are seen at university level, with students either leaving university or changing subjects. Moreover, a major gender-gap can be seen. This in turn leaves society with a growing shortage of educated programmers. Aiming to tackle this, a COOL (cooperative open learning) concept has been established, where students engage in a weekly, peer-learning and peer-teaching course. The course focuses on software development, and utilizes the COOL concept of peer-learning and peer-teaching. This concept has already been applied successfully as part of the Business Informatics bachelor program at the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) in Linz, where it throughout its three running years have seen a decrease in dropouts. The connection between the implementation of the program and the lowered drop-out rate requires further observations to be established.